Amazon · Prime Wardrobe
The $4.50 return
I owned return performance and cost. A drop-off went from $4.50 to $1.20.
- $4.50 to $1.20
- Cost to drop off a return
- about $19M
- Saved a year on returns and packaging
- 2 days or less
- Delivery, down from three to five days
The problem
Prime Wardrobe let you try clothes at home before you paid for them. It had found its market. Now it had to make money. About two of every three items came back, and roughly 85% of orders had a return in them. Each return cost $4.50 just to drop off.
What I did
I owned everything after checkout: delivery, tracking, returns, and what all of it cost. We opened in-store drop-off options to replace carrier pickups. We ran the numbers on the white-glove packaging and removed it. We went from one fulfillment center to three and moved the returns experience onto Amazon’s core systems.
What changed
Drop-off cost fell from $4.50 to $1.20. Packaging came down $1.15 an order. Together, returns and packaging saved about $19 million a year. Delivery went from three to five days down to two or less, and NPS rose about two points.